Industry News

THE TAX BURDEN OF CORONAVIRUS RELIEF

Business groups are pushing Congress to address a looming tax issue for companies that benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program.

The March economic-relief law declared that forgiven PPP loans don't count as taxable income. But the Treasury Department later said PPP recipients who get that tax-free loan forgiveness can't take their ordinary tax deductions for associated business expenses, calling it an impermissible double benefit.

Lawmakers in both parties said they meant to allow the deductions and have proposed legislation overturning the Treasury ruling, but they haven’t been able to get it enacted yet. A Thursday letter from trade groups including the Associated General Contractors, the National Restaurant Association, the Pet Industry Distributors Association and the U.S. Apple Association asks lawmakers to make the deductibility a priority.

“Without Congressional action, businesses will face an unexpected tax bill when they file their taxes for 2020, as they continue to struggle with government mandated shutdowns or slowdowns,” the letter says. “Many of those businesses will close and never re-open. This senseless tax policy stands both the letter and spirit of the PPP on its head.”

The deductibility provision was included in a bipartisan proposal earlier this week but not in a separate Senate Republican plan. ▪

PPP DEDUCTIBILITY INDUSTRY LETTER TO CONSIDER SIGNING

Matthew Turkstra, director, congressional relations, tax, fiscal affairs, and accounting with The Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America, has circulated a coalition letter calling on Congress to overturn the IRS decision on the deductibility of expenses associated with the PPP loan

continued from page 9forgiveness. Please note this letter is limited to associations only. If you are interested in signing, please visit the link below.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeTcah9tI9gC12k aLVYjzEAoVdAAeh8zuCmVLAD_fVCw06BNQ/viewform ▪

PPP LOAN FORGIVENESS - QUICK 1-MINUTE SURVEY HOW CAN SMACNA HELP?

Some of you have reached out expressing concerns over the PPP Loan Forgiveness program.

It is our understanding that during the application process for Loan Forgiveness, the SBA is requesting additional information from applicants. For example, the SBA has requested a copy of each Governor proclamation concerning COVID and the impact the proclamation has had on the industry. Since these additional documentation requests were unexpected, SMACNA-WW would like to create a database for you to pull from if asked these questions during the loan forgiveness process.

As such, if you are in the process of applying for loan forgiveness and have been asked to provide supporting documentation, please take the following PPP Loan Forgiveness survey. All answers will be kept confidential. Take survey at: survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ehg7vgp5kiex89ed/ a00mkiyykx38/questions ▪